In a question-and-answer session, El-Sayed clarified his support for the legalization of marijuana, single-payer health care and bipartisan redistricting, among other issues.

El-Sayed said he supports marijuana legalization because it would allow for better enforcing of marijuana regulations among young users who are vulnerable to the drug’s effects, and also because it would help reduce incarceration rates especially among poor African-American men.

“The single best way … around limiting marijuana usage for folks for whom marijuana may be dangerous … is to legalize it for everyone else and be very focused about who can’t use it,” El-Sayed said during his speech. “It’s just smart policy.”

El-Sayed said his experiences as a doctor led him to believe single-payer healthcare would be the best way forward.

“Every single high-income society in the world has recognized that you can provide access to healthcare that is more equitable, cheaper and more affordable for people if you get government involved,” El-Sayed said during his speech. “And that’s because, fundamentally, markets don’t work for healthcare.”

Sanders, who drew large crowds during his campaign last year for the Democratic Party nomination for President, is expected to speak about health care at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center.

BernieSanders.com lists the event as running from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. with doors at the convention center opening at 4:30 p.m. The event is free to the public, and RSVPs are encouraged.

…

“The Republican plan is even worse than expected and by far the most harmful piece of legislation I have seen in my lifetime,” Sanders said in a statement provided to CNN. “This bill has nothing to do with health care. It has everything to do with an enormous transfer of wealth from working people to the richest.”

Sanders said in a press release Wednesday that he would hold “Care Not Cut” rallies in Kentucky and West Virginia this Sunday.

In his release, Sanders said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell R-Ky.) would hurt his own state with his party’s healthcare plan.

McConnell’s legislation, which would throw 22 million Americans off of health insurance, would be a disaster for the country and an even worse disaster for the people of Kentucky,” Sanders said.
“Under the Affordable Care Act, Kentucky has made significant progress in lowering the number of its uninsured people. Further, the expansion of Medicaid there has been of significant help in the fight against the opioid epidemic which has ravaged Kentucky.”

Hola LD. 🙂 I just don’t think the Bernster will run again. No, this has nothing to do with his age!!! In fact, I wish he would bottle and sell his energy secret. I would be the first in line to purchase it. LOL. He works full-time as a public servant. He also enjoys his family time. It will be fascinating to see what shakes out for 2020. Something decent is my hope! T and R to the usual suspects!!

Randy Bryce said Wednesday that he has raised $430,000 in the opening days of his campaign to challenge House Speaker Paul Ryan in 2018.

Bryce’s campaign released fundraising totals after the second-quarter campaign finance deadline passed Friday. After launching his campaign on June 19, Bryce received more than 16,000 donations with an average donation of about $25, according to a news release.

The Caledonia resident received national attention after releasing a video highlighting his background as an ironworker and his mother’s battle against illness.

“Just a few weeks into this race, we have seen what can happen when you have the power of working people on your side, and I am excited to work with everyone as we continue this fight through next November,” Bryce said in the news release.

You were a Bernie supporter in the Wisconsin Democratic primary and you were set to be an elector for Hillary in the general election. Are you concerned that those two camps are heading in different directions? How do you think the party can reconcile and come together?

RB: I think I’m in a really good position to be able to unite both camps into one. I understand the support for Bernie. I appreciated him going on picket lines as well as his stances. At the same time, I understand voting for Hillary. I did whatever possible to keep out Donald Trump, who ran on a populist message that some working people fell for. He made a lot of promises that he hasn’t kept. He hasn’t done one thing on behalf of working people that he said he would do.

I’m getting a lot of support from both camps. It seems to be a bigger issue on social media around the country than it does in the First Congressional District.

i don’t want to unite and I’d prefer that my candidates, while not being so blunt, would nicely phrase that it’s time for the Hill crowd to move (a lot) towards what the people want. But nicely, I’m sure.

Asked about Bryce’s star status, Yankovich’s campaign manager Lauren Young issued a statement: “While of course David Yankovich would like a share of the national media attention, he is really happy to see that attention is being paid to Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District and the fight to unseat Paul Ryan, a career politician who has brought little to the district and stands to do much harm against working families. “Cathy Myers and Randy Bryce are both strong candidates,” Young continued, “and David looks forward to a positive primary campaign that will make the eventual Democratic nominee even stronger and able to bring down the Speaker of the House.” Myers told The Gazette the flush of excitement about Bryce was just a reflection of how badly some people want to beat Ryan. ”If it was just about having a good video, then everybody would do it. When voters get a chance to meet all of us, I think they’re going to find out just how viable a candidate I am,” Myers said. Myers noted it’s more than a year from the August 2018 primary, adding: “I’m going to trust that the media is going do a good job of covering the race in its entirety and give me a chance to make my case.”

I missed this last week–Gillibrand appears to be staking out a position on the left/progressive side of the Dem spectrum–possibly to position herself if Sanders and Warren don’t run.

Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York has come out in favor of a single-payer health care system.

When her senior adviser Glen Caplin was asked by CNN about whether the junior senator from New York supports single payer, he responded “Yes.

“Health care should be a right, it should never be a privilege. We should have Medicare for all in this country,” Gillibrand replied.

This is a move to the left for Gillibrand, who despite advocating for “Medicare for all” since her first congressional campaign has not outright advocated a single-payer system. She is following in the suit of Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who told The Wall Street Journal last week that “President Obama tried to move us forward with health-care coverage by using a conservative model that came from one of the conservative think tanks that had been advanced by a Republican governor in Massachusetts. Now it’s time for the next step. And the next step is single payer.”

Despite shifts in the terrain of struggle, the courageous and determined Water Protectors of the movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) continue to stand strong, gain momentum and mobilize in diverse and effective ways in their work to protect Indigenous rights, water and life in North Dakota and beyond.

From powerful Indigenous and frontline leadership at the 200,000 strong People’s Climate March in Washington DC, to ceaseless advocacy and actions in courtrooms, in the streets, in the halls of government, and in the offices of financial institutions that support exploitation and extraction—the DAPL resistance continues, while also joining together with other communities to face mounting pipeline struggles including Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain, Enbridge’s Line 3, TransCanada’s Energy East, Sonoco Logistic’s Bayou Bridge, the resurrection of TransCanada’s Keystone XL and efforts to stop fossil fuel extraction at the source.

Over the past months, Water Protectors from various Indigenous nations across the U.S. have made waves while traveling to seven European countries for The Stand Up for Standing Rock Tour; have opened the L’eau Est La Vie (Water is Life) Camp in South Louisiana to stop the Bayou Bridge pipeline (the southern end of DAPL); and have helped organize, through the International Indigenous Youth Council, an 80 mile run across Northern New Mexico in opposition to growing fracking in the Chaco Canyon region; amongst many other diverse and powerful actions.

The Pew Research Center released last week the results of one of its periodic surveys of global views of the United States and its leadership and policies. More than 40,000 people were polled in 37 countries across six continents between February and May. The most salient finding is a dramatic drop in confidence in the United States and, more specifically, in the current U.S. leadership.

When asked about “confidence in the U.S. president to do the right thing in world affairs,” 22 percent of those surveyed expressed confidence in Donald Trump and 74 percent expressed no confidence. This is a huge reversal from the last time the same question was asked about Barack Obama late in his presidency, in which 64 percent expressed confidence and 23 percent no confidence.

The rapidity as well as the magnitude of the change is striking. Trump’s numbers approach those of George W. Bush near the end of his presidency, but in Bush’s case those depths were reached only after a long decline during his two terms. Trump has managed to bum people out around the world during his first four months in office.

The leaders of China and Russia have vowed to work together to peacefully defuse the deepening crisis over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes – a diplomatic double act that contrasts sharply with Donald Trump’s crude threats and pressure tactics.

The joint declaration reflected a broader, ongoing strategic Sino-Russian alignment that has passed largely unremarked in the west. It has been encouraged by Trump’s often erratic, unfocused behaviour, and the resulting opportunities and dangers arising from weakened American global leadership.

The China-Russia juggernaut is beginning to roll. And like a comic-strip fall-guy with his legs tied to the rails, Trump lies directly in its path.

At a town hall in Pennsylvania on Wednesday night, Republican senator Pat Toomey faced an angry protest over his role in the GOP healthcare bill, while Ted Cruz was heckled over his suggested amendment to the legislation at an event in Texas.

Scores of people gathered outside the ABC27 studio in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where Toomey was holding what had been billed as a town hall meeting.

But in reality just eight audience members were allowed into the invite-only event, and their questions had been pre-screened by the news channel.

The closed-door approach did not endear Toomey to the sign-waving protesters outside, who accused the senator of not “having courage to speak to people who would be personally affected” by the Senate healthcare legislation he helped to write.

Cruz, meanwhile, was heckled at what in theory should have been a safe event; a ticket-only town hall veterans discussion hosted by Concerned Veterans for America – a rightwing advocacy group financed by the Koch brothers.

Audience questions for Cruz at the event in McKinney, north of Dallas, had been screened in advance by the CVA, but two audience members went rogue to quiz and interrupt the Texas senator over his proposed tweak to the Senate bill.

Who can be trusted with nuclear weapons? Received wisdom has it that only the leaders of the world’s established nuclear weapons states are responsible guardians of their nations’ nuclear arsenals. At the same time, only the belligerent leaders from developing countries with nuclear aspirations present a security threat.

But as the current historical context shows, the belief that the president of the United States is somehow more responsible than the North Korean dictator is ill founded.

Advocates for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons currently being negotiated at the United Nations argue that nuclear weapons are not safe in anybody’s hands. The aim of the prohibition treaty is to delegitimize nuclear weapons by creating a new international norm that recognizes these weapons as a planetary threat.

The eight states who are known to possess nuclear weapons – China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, the US and the UK – are boycotting these negotiations because they don’t want their status quo disturbed.

O﻿ n June 28, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the vice chair of Donald Trump’s presidential commission on “election integrity,” sent a letter to all 50 states requesting sweeping voter data, including Social Security numbers, party affiliation, criminal backgrounds, and military history.

At first, only a few states, like California, Kentucky, and Virginia, said no, denouncing the commission as “a waste of taxpayer money and a distraction from the real threats to the integrity of our elections today.” But over the holiday weekend, opposition to Kobach’s request dramatically increased from both red and blue states. As of Wednesday afternoon, 45 states have refused to turn over private voter data to Trump’s commission. “I’ve been studying America’s election administration since 2000, and I’ve rarely seen a firestorm like this,” wrote MIT political scientist Charles Stewart III.

Twenty states are refusing to give Kobach any data and 25 states are handing over only limited public information on voters (a full list of the states appears below). Even Kobach couldn’t hand over Social Security numbers to himself because they’re not publicly available in Kansas. Six states have not yet responded.

I’ve taken to reminding everyone who brings up North Korea in my presence how we wrecked North Korea and gee, no wonder they’re worried about protecting themselves. Also, maybe if we stopped acting so belligerently towards them they’d settle down!

The Korean War, a “limited war” for the US and UN forces, was for Koreans a total war. The human and material resources of North and South Korea were used to their utmost. The physical destruction and loss of life on both sides was almost beyond comprehension, but the North suffered the greater damage, due to American saturation bombing and the scorched-earth policy of the retreating UN forces.1 The US Air Force estimated that North Korea’s destruction was proportionately greater than that of Japan in the Second World War, where the US had turned 64 major cities to rubble and used the atomic bomb to destroy two others. American planes dropped 635,000 tons of bombs on Korea

I read an account from an American pilot that they literally ran out of targets because every building had already been turned into rubble.

The fight that followed was fierce, a conflict of attrition featuring allegations of fraud and duplicitous dealing. Its outcome, however, offers lessons to other communities across the country, and especially in the arid American West, that want to defend their future by controlling their most cherished resource.

House Democrats are at odds over whether attacks on President Trump will prove to be a winning campaign message in 2018.

Trump’s approval numbers are well underwater, so many Democrats maintain that linking the unpopular president to vulnerable Republicans is the obvious way to pick up the 24 seats the party needs to win back the House after eight years in the minority.

“I think we can tie House Republicans to the failure of the Trump administration,” said Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.). “It’s conceivable we could probably win back the House.”

Yet Trump’s meteoric rise in the political world has been built around defying odds and upending expectations. And his populist appeal and resilience to controversy paved his way to the White House, stunning Democrats who wrongly believed the mercurial reality TV star would be a drag on Republicans down the ballot.

..

Rep. John Larson (Conn.), a former chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said the 2018 midterm elections will hinge on a single issue: jobs. And everything else — including the Republicans’ efforts to repeal ObamaCare and the ongoing investigations into Russia’s meddling in the presidential election — will be overshadowed by the degree to which voters feel financially secure.

With that in mind, Larson said, the Democrats need to do much more than simply attack Trump. They need an aggressive economic message that resonates with marginalized voters who want help from Washington.

A group pushing for campaign finance reform said it raised $3.4 million in the second quarter of the year.

End Citizens United PAC, which is seeking to overturn the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United, plans to raise a total of $35 million in the 2018 cycle.

The PAC said it’s on pace with its fundraising from the second quarter of the 2016 cycle and had 30,000 first-time donors this quarter. according to a release provided first to The Hill.

The recent haul brings their 2017 fundraising to date to $7.5 million, which comes from grassroots, small-dollar donations. The group said it’s contributed $1.7 million directly to its endorsed candidates, including Democrat Jon Ossoff, who recently lost a close race in Georgia’s special election. The figure is up from last year when ECU raised $600,000 total for its endorsed candidates.

In March of last year, a new organization with the arguably misleading name of End Citizens United began bombarding progressive donors with high-pressure fundraising emails tailor made to exploit grassroots passions over the toxic influence of corporate and billionaire money on elections.

“Will you donate $3 or more to support our work toward reforming our campaign finance system and ultimately overturning Citizens United?” read one of the dozens of fundraising emails that has hit my inbox. End Citizens United is “dedicated to countering the disastrous effects of Citizens United and reforming our campaign finance system,” declares the group’s website.

But despite such lofty rhetoric, the group has done virtually nothing to actually promote a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, the 2010 Supreme Court ruling that deregulated political spending. Instead, the group is strictly a political action committee that has raised $6.8 million thanks to heavy spending on list rentals and fundraising overhead.

All but 10 percent of the $3.2 million that the group has spent so far in this election cycle has gone into operating expenditures, public records show. And even the $395,000 or so that End Citizens United has given out to candidates has gone to Democratic hopefuls not exactly known for their progressive credentials. Some campaign reform champions, such as Wisconsin Democrat Russell Feingold, who is seeking to regain his former Senate seat, and scholar and activist Zephyr Teachout, who is running for Congress in New York, have received endorsements from End Citizens United. But so have a long list of moderate and business-friendly Democrats, including three members of the Blue Dog Coalition that represents the most conservative Democrats on Capitol Hill.

All this has left a bad taste in the mouths of progressive organizers. End Citizens United employs rhetoric similar to that of Bernie Sanders and of such legitimate activist organizations as People for the American Way and of Public Citizen, on whose board I sit. But the group is run by a team of Democratic operatives, and backs 12 of the 13 House Democrats identified as “front line” priorities in 2016 by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Author and longtime progressive activist Jim Hightower, who also sits on Public Citizen’s board, is more blunt about End Citizen’s United, telling me: “It’s a fraud.”
“They’re co-opting the momentum and excitement for our movement to fundraise for candidates who may or may not even support amending the Constitution to ‘end Citizens United’ and who certainly have shown no leadership in addressing the even more root issue of corporate constitutional rights,” wrote Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, national director of the Move to Amend Coalition, in a blog post last year. Author and longtime progressive activist Jim Hightower, who also sits on Public Citizen’s board, is more blunt about End Citizen’s United, telling me: “It’s a fraud.”

Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that retail giant Hobby Lobby agreed to pay a $3 million fine and will forfeit thousands of ancient Iraqi relics wrongly labeled as “samples” and smuggled into the United States.

The Department of Justice filed a civil complaint in New York, and announced that Hobby Lobby had agreed to the fine and to forfeit thousands of antiquities including cuneiform tablets and clay bullae that prosecutors said were smuggled through the United Arab Emirates and Israel to the United States using deliberately false labeling practices.

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee is urging the Pentagon not to cancel contracts for more than 1,000 foreign-born recruits who were promised citizenship for enlisting.

“I write to express my deep concern about reports that the Department of Defense is considering canceling or dramatically altering the contracts it entered into with foreign-born recruits to the United States military, under the Military Accessions Vital to National Interest (MAVNI) program,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis on Thursday.

“As you consider a sustainable future for the MAVNI program, I strongly urge you not to take any action that harms military recruiting efforts or the readiness of our armed forces.”

The path back to power for the Democratic Party today, as it was in the 1990s, is unquestionably to move to the center and reject the siren calls of the left, whose policies and ideas have weakened the party.

In the early 1990s, the Democrats relied on identity politics, promoted equality of outcomes instead of equality of opportunity and looked to find a government solution for every problem. After years of leftward drift by the Democrats culminated in Republican control of the House under Speaker Newt Gingrich, President Bill Clinton moved the party back to the center in 1995 by supporting a balanced budget, welfare reform, a crime bill that called for providing 100,000 new police officers and a step-by-step approach to broadening health care. Mr. Clinton won a resounding re-election victory in 1996 and Democrats were back.

The Clinton wing of the party still trying to control the party by trying to blame Obama (whaaaat??) for going too left (and supposedly THAT’S why the party lost over 1,000 seats)!

I agree with InteGritty (remember that name?), absurd!

To win, Dems must become GOP.Co-written by longtime Hillary/Bill aide and NYC machine corporaDem.

19 AG’s, including AG IL Sues DeVos (& DOE) for Suspending Rules Made Under Obama Administration to Protect Students in For-Profit Higher Education

Democratic attorneys general in 18 states and the District of Columbia are suing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over her decision to suspend rules meant to protect students from abuses by for-profit colleges.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday in federal court in Washington and demands implementation of borrower defense to repayment rules.

The rules aim to make schools financially responsible for fraud and forbid them from forcing students to resolve complaints outside court.

They were created under President Barack Obama’s administration and were to take effect July 1.

On June 14, DeVos announced the rules would be delayed and rewritten, saying they created “a muddled process that’s unfair to students and schools.”

The rules were finalized last year following the collapse of Corinthian Colleges, a national for-profit chain that operated Everest College campuses in the Chicago area before its closure.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is leading the lawsuit and says DeVos’ decision is “a betrayal of her office’s responsibility and a violation of federal law.”

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is among those suing.

“Students should not have to pay for student loans they obtained to attend fraudulent schools that promised education and training that they did not provide,” Madigan said. “The Department of Education has clear evidence of Corinthian’s widespread fraud, yet it has delayed relief for thousands of these former students and others who are still on the hook for their student loan debt.”

The General Synod of the United Church of Christ is calling for an end to what is being described as “traumatic” practices by Israeli military against Palestinian children.

A resolution, brought forward by 16 individual UCC churches, calls on the state of Israel to guarantee Palestinian children younger than age 18 their basic due process rights and to prohibit any use of torture or ill-treatment of detained juveniles in the occupied territories. Needing two-thirds of the votes from General Synod 2017 delegates, that resolution easily had the necessary support, with 79 percent of the votes in favor.

“This resolution is about the breath of God in Palestinian children,” said Catherine Alder, a delegate of the Central Pacific Conference. “What is happening to them is against international law and against the law of love.”

believe that the occupation has created two separate legal systems. Jewish children living in the occupied territories who are arrested are prosecuted through civil courts because they are citizens of Israel.

“These two legal systems treat children of the same age committing the same infraction quite differently,” said the Rev. Leslie Schenk, chair of the committee that reviewed the resolution and pastor of Plymouth Congregational UCC in Madison, Wis. “As a young person said eloquently said during our discussion, ‘It seems like this should have come out a long time ago. Why hasn’t this happened yet?’”

The current political firestorm over health care, fueled by moves to repeal the Affordable Care Act without offering an alternative, opens the door for an unlikely group to take radical action — the country’s CEOs.

They could unite and present to the country with a simple message: “Our shareholders are demanding that the nation’s political leaders get real about the health-care crisis. From a fiduciary standpoint, we can’t continue to support any health-care system that drains our equity and competitiveness.

“A single-payer, ‘Medicare for all’ system, with its miniscule administrative cost, would check all the boxes in any Harvard Business School manual for effective programs. We endorse single payer because it’s the best business plan for the economy and our businesses.”

It’s an astonishing opportunity for CEOs because they could, with one policy gambit, save billions of dollars on the bottom line, give workers a raise, have more money to invest in research and development, improve international competitiveness and, for a change, earn the respect, admiration and gratitude of millions of Americans.